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Great Expectations

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Great Expectations
Current edition of Great Expectations
AuthorCharles Dickens
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
Publication date
1860 – 1861
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)

Great Expectations is a Bildungsroman (a novel tracing the life of the protagonist) by Charles Dickens and first serialized in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. It tells the story of the orphan Pip (short for Philip Pirrip) and his "expectations," inheritance and plans for progression in his life and status. Great Expectations is divided into three volumes, each of which corresponds to one stage of Pip's expectations and his life journey.

Plot introduction & overview

Great Expectations is the story of Pip, told by the protaganist in semi-autobiographical style as a remembrance of his life from the early days of his childhood until years after the main conflicts of the story have been resolved in adulthood. The story is also semi-autobiographical to the author Dickens, as are some other of his stories, drawing on his experiences of life and people.

The story is divided into three phases of Pip's life expectations. In the first, he lives a humble existence with his ill-tempered older sister and her strong but gentle husband, Joe. Pip is satisfied with this life and warm friends until he is hired by an embittered wealthy woman, Miss Havisham, as a sometime companion to her and her beautiful but haughty adopted daughter, Estella. From that time, Pip aspires to leave behind his simple life and be a gentleman. After years as companion to Miss Havisham and Estella, he spends more years as apprentice to Joe, so that he may grow up to have a livelihood working as a blacksmith. This life is suddenly turned upside down when he is visited by a London attorney, Mr. Jaggers, who informs Pip that he is to come into the "Great Expectation" of a handsome property and be trained to be a gentleman at the behest of an anonymous benefactor.

The second stage of Pip's expectations sees Pip in London, learning the details of being a gentlemen, having tutors, fine clothing, and joining fine society. Whereas he always engaged in honest labour for what he had when he was younger, he now is supported by a generous allowance, which he frequently lives beyond. He learns to fit in this new milieu, and experiences not only friendship but rivalry as he finds himself in the same circles as Estella, who is also pursued by many other men, especially one, Bentley Drummle, who she favors. As he adopts the physical and cultural norms of his new status, he also adopts the class attitudes that go with it, and when Joe comes to visit Pip and his friend and roommate Herbert to deliver an important message, Pip is embarassed to the point of hostility by Joe's unlearned ways, despite Pip's protestations of love and friendship for Joe. At the end of this stage, Pip is introduced to his benefactor, again changing his world.

The third and last stage of Pip's expectations changes Pip's life from the artificially supported world of his upper class strivings and introduces him to realities that he realizes he must deal with, facing moral, physical and financial challenges. He learns startling truths that cast into doubt the values that he once embraced so eagerly, and finds that he cannot regain many of the important things that he had cast aside so carelessly.

Dickens has Pip as the writer and first person narrator of this account of his life's experiences, and the entire story is understood to have been written as a retrospective, rather than as a present tense narrative or a diary or journal. Still, though Pip "knows" how all the events in the story will turn out, he uses only very subtle foreshadowing so that we learn of events only when and as Pip did. Pip does, however, use the perspective of the bitter lessons he's learned to comment acidly on various of his actions and attitudes in his earlier life.

Plot summary

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This account traces the characters, events and plot line in Dickens' original novel. Many of the details may be different from one or another of the filmed versions, including the ending. Some of these characters are omitted or their roles altered or diminished even in the "better" screen efforts, due to the constraints of time or the director's vision.

The first expectation: A simple but honest life

Pip's family and prospects

Pip is a young orphan who is being brought up by his adult sister, a sharp and self-pitying woman who is married to the kind and simple village blacksmith, Joe Gargery, who will make Pip his apprentice when he is of age. She often complains that the compliant Pip is an ungrateful burden to her, who she is bringing up "by hand" out of the goodness of her heart. "By hand" is meant to mean that she is raising him herself by her own efforts, but Pip sees the ironic meaning of being brought up under Mrs. Joe's heavy hand, and imagines that she "brings up" her husband Joe by the same hand. Joe feels special empathy with Pip since, while Joe loves his wife, always referred to as "Mrs. Joe," very much, he and Pip share their fear of her temper and her scolding.

Pip's kindness to a convict

While out on the marshes one evening, Pip is accosted by a frightening looking convict, Abel Magwitch, who has escaped from a prison ship lying off shore. Magwitch demands Pip's help, wanting food and a file to remove his shackles. Magwitch threatens Pip with terrible tortures to be administered by a mythical boy if Pip doesn't do his bidding. Pip returns home and brings Magwitch more than he asks, including liquor and a pork pie that Mrs. Joe was saving for company. Magwitch eats greedily and responds with a bit of surprise and gratitude when Pip tells him that he hopes he enjoys his food. To the convict's surprise, Pip reveals that he has seen someone who he took to be the "boy" the convict mentioned. The convict realizes that this person is another convict, Compeyson, who has also escaped, and is Magwitch's enemy. Pip runs home to his family to find them at dinner with the company that Mrs. Joe is trying to impress. Mrs. Joe sends Pip for the pork pie that Pip has given Magwitch. Mrs. Joe's anger at the pie being missing is cut off when soldiers from the prison ship enter, asking for the blacksmith to repair shackles for them. The men at the table, including Joe and Pip, follow the soldiers to the marshes, where they all find Magwitch in a bruising fight with Compeyson, with the latter yelling that he is being murdered. Both convicts are captured and, as they are being put in a dinghy to return to the prison ships, Pip signals to Magwitch that he didn't betray him. The convict then addresses Joe to tell him that he had stolen Joe's pork pie, removing suspicion from Pip. Joe responds with his characteristic kindness, saying that Magwitch was welcome to it, so far as it ever was Joe's. The convicts are taken away.

Pip's simple life is challenged by a different vision

Some time later, the Gargery family is informed that Miss Havisham, an eccentric and rich spinster, wishes Pip to visit her at her ruined estate, Satis House, where Pip meets her beautiful but haughty and rather cruel adopted daughter, Estella. Miss Havisham explains to Pip that she sometimes has the "sick fancy" to see children play, and directs Pip to "play." Pip is taken aback at the unusual request and dark, gloomy setting, so Miss Havisham tells Estella to play cards with him. Estella is offended and complains that Pip is "a common, labouring boy." From that moment, Pip is no longer happy with the simple life and warm but common friends he has known and desires Estella and the wealthy, refined life she represents.

Pip's companions

Pip spends years as Miss Havisham's companion and his attraction to Estella becomes unrequited love. Estella warms to Pip, but only as a friend, not a future lover. Despite this, Miss Havisham encourages Pip in his belief that she has selected him to be Estella's life companion and Estella Pip's.

Pip parts from the Havishams

When Pip is of age to begin his apprenticeship as a blacksmith, Miss Havisham tells him to bring Joe to see her. Apprentices were expected to pay for their apprenticeships in addition to providing their labour, in exchange for which the master provided room and board as well as teaching a valuable trade. Miss Havisham pays for Pip's indenture, indicating that this is her payment for Pip's years of service. Pip begins his trade education but cannot forget Estella. At the year's anniversary of his schooling, he goes to visit Miss Havisham on the pretext of thanking her for paying his bond. After he greets Miss Havisham, she sees that Pip is evidently looking for Estella, informs Pip that she is "abroad, educating for a lady" Pip is taken aback by the "malignant enjoyment" Miss Havisham takes in asking Pip "Do you feel that you have lost her?"

Pip learns of his "great expectation" to be made a gentlemen

In the fourth year of his apprenticship, Pip and Joe are visited at home by Mr. Jaggers, a well-known London attorney, who Pip recognizes from having seen him at Miss Havisham's house; Jaggers is Miss Havisham's attorney. Jaggers informs Pip and Joe that Pip is to be the beneficiary of the "Great Expectation" of an upbringing as a gentleman in anticipation of coming into a fortune when he reaches adulthood. No sooner had Pip heard this then he was impressed that his "wild fancy" was to be "surpassed by sober reality"; that Miss Havisham was going to make his fortune "on a grand scale"; but Pip is not informed, nor may he be informed, nor may he even inquire, who his benefactor is until an unspecified future time of the benefactor's choosing, when the benefactor's identity will be revealed to Pip in person, by that person.

Mr. Jaggers also informs Pip that, as a condition of his great expectations that "it is the request of the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear the name of Pip."

Since Pip is indentured to Joe Gargery, Jaggers informs Joe, who is Pip's master in his apprenticeship, that he is prepared to offer him money to buy out his rights to Pip's service. Joe is angered almost to the point of violence that Mr. Jaggers should assume he would accept money not to stand in the way of Pip's prospects for a better life.

The second expectation: To be a gentlemen

Pip arrives in London

Before Pip left his old home he bade farewell to the marshes and countryside that he had known all his life: "farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, henceforth I was for London and greatness"; but when he arrives in London he finds it "rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty." Not finding Mr. Jaggers in his office, he speaks to his clerk, Wemmick, and then sets off to see some of his new home. When he finds Jaggers, he is impressed that he is curt, businesslike, and apparently heartless, but a highly respected lawyer on whose skills many people's property, life and liberty depended. Mr. Jaggers take Pip in his office, informs him of his living place and that he will be watching over his money and sends him out with Wimmick to "Little Britain," the apartment block where Pip will live with Herbert Pocket, whose father Matthew Pocket will be Pip's tutor. Great Expectations is an awesome book (way too awesome for its own good, that is) (aka the most awesome book ever)

Pip learns details of the Havishams

Herbert is a member of Miss Havisham's family, who Pip met at Satis House when both were children. Miss Havisham detests the Pockets as she believes that they only pay tribute to her because they expect to get her money when she dies, though Herbert's father is not one of those who will flatter her in the hope of inheritance. Herbert teaches Pip the ways of polite company, such as dining etiquette. Pip tells Herbert of his love for Estella and Herbert tells him of Miss Havisham's history: how she had been engaged to marry; how her betrothed had abandoned her on their wedding day; how she stopped all the clocks at Satis House at the time of her betrayal and "laid waste" to the once fine mansion. Herbert warns Pip that Miss Havisham adopted and raised Estella to "wreak revenge on all the male sex"; but Pip does not heed this warning, and Herbert cannot tell Pip anything more about where Estella came from and how she came to be adopted by Miss Havisham: "There has always been an Estella, since I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more."

Significant characters in "Great Expectations"

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  • Philip Pirrip, nicknamed Pip – an orphan, and the protagonist. Pip is to be trained as a blacksmith, a low but skilled and honest profession, but strives to rise above his class after meeting Estella Havisham.
  • Joe Gargary – Pip's brother-in-law, and his first father figure. Joe represents the poor but honest life that Pip rejects.
  • Mrs. Joe Gargary – Pip's adult sister, who brings him up after the death of their parents, but complains constantly of the burden Pip is to her. A hot tempered woman, Mrs. Joe goads Joe into defending her honor against Orlick, Joe's journeyman blacksmith, who secretly attacks her as revenge, eventually leading to her death.
  • Abel Magwitch – a convict, who Pip treats kindly, and who turns out to be his actual benefactor.
  • Provis – a name that Abel Magwitch uses when he returns to London, to conceal his identity.
  • Compeyson [surname] – another convict, and enemy to Magwitch. He was Miss Havisham's intended husband, who was in league with Arthur to defraud Miss Havisham of her fortune. He pursues Magwitch when he learns that he is in London and eventually dies while battling him.
  • Miss Havisham – Wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion, and who Pip is led to believe is his benefactor. Miss Havisham does not discourage this as it fits into her own spiteful plans.
  • Estella Havisham – Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, who Pip pursues romantically throughout the novel. Estella represents the life of wealth and culture that Pip strives for. Since her ability to love any man (or anyone for that matter) has been ruined by Miss Havisham, she is unable to return Pip's passion. She warns Pip of this repeatedly, but he refuses to believe her.
  • Arthur [Havisham] – Miss Havisham's half-brother, who felt he was shortchanged in his inheritance by their father's preference for his daughter. He joined with Compeyson in the scheme to cheat Miss Havisham of large sums of money by gaining Miss Havisham's trust through promise of marriage to Compeyson. Arthur is haunted by the memory of the scheme and sickens and dies in a delirium, imagining that the still-living Miss Havisham is in his room, coming to kill him. Arthur has died before the beginning of the novel, and is only described to Pip by Magwitch.
  • Biddy – a kind and intelligent but poor young woman, like Pip and Estella an orphan, who is the opposite of Estella. Pip ignores Biddy's obvious love for him as he fruitlessly pursues Estella. After he realizes the error of his life choices, he returns to claim Biddy as his bride, only to find out she has married Joe Gargery.
  • "Dolge" Orlick – Journeyman blacksmith at Joe Gargery's forge. Strong, rude and sullen, he is as churlish as Joe is gentle and kind. His resentments cause him to take actions which threaten his desires in life, but for which he blames others. He ends up in a fistfight with Joe over Mrs. Joe's taunting and is easily beaten. This set in motion an escalating chain of events that lead him to secretly injure Mrs. Joe grievously and eventually make an attempt on Pip's life.
  • Mr. Jaggers – Prominent London attorney who represents the interests of diverse clients, both criminal and civil. He represents Pip's benefactor and is Miss Havisham's attorney as well. By the end of the story, his law practice is the common element that touches many of the characters.
  • Molly – Mr. Jaggers' maidservant who Jaggers saved from the gallows for murder. She is revealed to be the former wife of Magwitch, and the natural mother of Estella.
  • Herbert Pocket – a member of the Pocket family, Miss Havisham's presumed heirs, who Pip first meets as a "pale young gentlemen" at Miss Havisham's house when both are children. He is the son of Matthew Pocket, Pip's tutor in the "gentlemanly" arts, and shares his apartment with Pip in London, becoming Pip's fast friend who is there to share Pip's happiness as well as his troubles.
  • Handel – Herbert Pocket's nickname for Pip, which he uses to address Pip from their first meeting.


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Comparison to Dickens' other works

There is very little agreement amongst readers as to which of Dickens' novels is the best, but Great Expectations is often placed near the top of polls. This contrasts with the end of the 19th century, when the author George Gissing, in his study of Dickens' works, had to remind the readers of the plot of Great Expectations as it was largely ignored compared to his other works. The book's lack of popularity shortly after it was written and its greater status today is perhaps due to the fact that it is the least "Dickensian" of any of his books. The usual grotesque characters common to many of his books are more muted and believable in this book. The book is very carefully plotted and less episodic than many of Dickens' other stories with the central character's changing viewpoint and perception of the world around him an important element of the story. There was an academic revival of interest, particularly by American critics starting in the 1940s, which has since placed it in the canon of often read school texts.

The character of Pip contrasts sharply with the title characters in such books as Nicholas Nickleby and Oliver Twist. In these novels, the main character is more simply portrayed and the characters around them are of far greater interest. Pip, on the other hand, begins as a likeable, but simple child, but develops into quite an unsympathetic character later in the book. Dickens draws the reader into following the fortunes of the changing Pip from childhood, a subject in which Dickens is an acknowledged master, on to a rather snobbish and objectionable adolescent and then to his final reformation. Although he would probably not have liked to admit it, Dickens himself was a very clear model for Pip's personality. Despite having great fondness for the poor and oppressed and wishing to improve their conditions, Dickens felt himself to be superior to them. What he saw as a shameful personal connection to the poor earlier in his life made his desire to separate from them more pronounced, and this is mirrored in Pip's story.

The ending of the book is another measure of the difference to other Dickens novels and also greatly affects the readers’ interpretation of the whole story. Dickens originally wrote an unhappy ending to the book that was, however, consistent with the book's theme. Dickens rarely did this and indeed it was very unusual for Victorian novels in general. After talking to his friends and fellow novelists Wilkie Collins and Edward Bulwer-Lytton he re-wrote a more hopeful ending which is the one used in all subsequent editions. Many critics regard the first ending as far more in keeping with the morality of the proceeding story but the second ending is acknowledged to be better written from a stylistic point of view. Both endings though are atypical compared to his other books and shows an uncertainty or ambivalence in the author's mind as to how the work should be ended.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Like many other Dickens novels, Great Expectations has been filmed several times:

Main article: Great Expectations (film)

See also

English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Online editions

Study Guides

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